HomeMy WebLinkAboutCB Minutes 2024-04-04 Town of Ithaca Conservation Board Meeting
April 4, 2024,5:30pm
(In Person at Town Hall and via Zoom Video Conference)
Final Minutes
Members in attendance:James Hamilton, Eva Hoffman, Ingrid Zabel, Frank Cantone, Michael Roberts
Staff present: Mike Smith (Senior Planner)
Guests: Christianne White (Steep Hollow Farm)
1. Persons to be Heard
a. Christianne White, resident of the Town of Ithaca, called in via Zoom with a question
about saving Eastern Hemlock trees on her property and more broadly. She has started
to have trees treated on her property, as many as she can afford.
b. She feels that there ought to be a plan for a widescale Hemlock treatment in the area
and would like to see an assessment of the Hemlocks in the inlet valley.
c. Christianne would like to see broader coordination on such an effort and is willing to find
a source of funding either with the State, the County, or Town that she/we could apply
to that would support treatment of Hemlock trees on private (and perhaps public) land.
d. She will try to identify a source of funding. Mike Smith will talk with Town staff to see if
there is a model for helping administer funds Christianne would apply for.
2. Member Concerns
a. Eva
i. Eva is on the Codes and Ordinances Committee.
ii. They are considering new subdivision regulations,which could require earth-
moving operations to clean their equipment off before leaving a construction
site. Eva asked if there was a protocol that has already been drafted that they
might look to for practical operational standards.
iii. Mike Roberts offered to help identify some resources that may help the Codes
and Ordinances Committee in their effort.
b. Ingrid
i. Regi Teasley reached out to Ingrid and asked if the Town might establish a
pollinator garden at Tutelo Park.
ii. She (Ingrid) will reach out to Joe Talbot to see if such a thing would be feasible.
iii. James—perhaps this could tie into the biocultural themed plant walk.
3. Biocultural Conservation (Mike Roberts)
a. The project is progressing steadily.
b. There are four prototype plant labels that Steve and Mike have developed.
c. Steve's work has been put on pause as all Town funds allocated for Steve Henhawk's
consulting work has been spent.
d. Mike Smith and Mike Roberts are applying for a grant to the county that would supply
the rest of the funds needed to finish Steve's consulting work and pay for plant label
fabrication and shipping.
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e. Mike R. has identified a vendor to fabricate the signs and is working with Town staff to
create a space on the Town of Ithaca website to host in-depth information on the plants
included in the walk and the audio files.
4. Chair and Coordinator Reports
a. Mike Smith
i. The deer program is done. 10 deer were harvested across eight sites. There was
not much consistent activity, maybe because of the lack of snow (meaning deer
could have been finding plenty of food elsewhere). Also, fewer hunters were
participating for various reasons.
ii. Energy Code Supplement
1. The Town has started a new assistance program for one and two family
homes, new construction or additions. Technical assistance,through a
Town provided consultant, to help work through energy code
requirements.
2. Mike S passed around anew help guide.
iii. South Hill Trail extension
1. NYSEG owns a critical piece of property that 4 municipalities are seeking
an easement on to extend the trail from Burns Road south to the County
line.
2. Those municipalities are seeking public comment soon to help move the
easement establishment forward.
iv. Earth Day Festival on the Commons,April 20tn
1. Town Sustainability staff (Hilary) will have a table there and would
welcome someone from this Board to table with her. With no one
available, Mike S will ask Hilary just to include a couple CB brochures.
5. Approval of Minutes
a. Minutes are not yet available for March 2024.
6. Plan for the 2023 Richard B. Fischer Environmental Conservation Award tree planting
a. The letter is ready; Lori will sign it next week. Mike Smith has contacted Joe Talbot to
find a location for the tree planting.
b. Suggestions:Tudor Park and East Ithaca Nature Preserve.
7. Regular reports and updates
a. Scenic Resources Committee (Eva)—no update
b. Communications Committee (Ingrid) —no update
c. Tompkins County EMS (Ingrid)
i. The May meeting will be in-person and we are all invited.
ii. Details: Thursday, May 9 from 4:00 to 5:30 PM at Stewart Park(large pavilion).
iii. Members of conservation boards and conservation advisory councils from
around the county are all invited,and it's a chance to get to know each other
and learn what other groups are doing.
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iv. Ingrid and Lori went to last year's in-person May meeting and it was a good
experience. Please attend if you can!
d. Six Mile Creek Volunteer Monitoring Program (James)
i. Volunteers changed a scheduled synoptic water sample of Six Mile Creek from
Wednesday morning, 4/3/24 to this Thursday morning, hoping the rains will
bring a high-flow turbid "storm event" to keep track of sediment movement.
ii. The stored Benthic Macroi nverteb rate samples from last summer's riffles have
finally been analyzed by volunteers to Community Science Institute's Langmuir
Lab, with no evidence of any problems with creek health.
e. Cornell Botanic Gardens Natural Areas Program (James)
i. The Tuesday afternoon volunteers hunted for Hemlock Wooly Adelgids (HWA) in
the National Natural Landmark at McLean Bogs. Since 2022, the hemlocks along
the esker ridges have just begun to show signs of a small HWA infestation. First
found on 3/15/22,a few trees continue to show a slight but spreading amount
of adelgids 3/26/24 in the north-east corner of the preserve north of Beaver
Creek, near the border with the Elm Tree golf course.
ii. A new slight beginning of HWA was found 3/26/24 near a trail on the south
slope of an esker west of Mud Pond, about 2,000 feet SW of the earlier HWA
infestation.
iii. On 3/19/24, volunteers rerouted a section of trail in the Monkey Run Natural
Area, where it had got too muddy from heavy hiking and running traffic. A new
trail uphill through a few hundred feet of invasive honeysuckle, bittersweet,
privet,Japanese barberry, buckthorn and euonymus invading a slight ridge
cleared with weed wrenches, puller bears, loppers and a shrub buster,will give
trail users drier footing.
iv. On March 5th and 12th,volunteers cleared invasives under a new opening in the
forest canopy, created when a huge old oak fell in a windstorm last summer
between Cascadilla Creek and the East Ithaca Rec Way, downstream of the
Game Farm bridge.
v. On the 12th, they also planted bare-root oaks there, dug up that morning from
the Plant Propagation Facility near Flat Rocks in Fall Creek. Grown from acorns
collected in other NAs downstream along Fall Creek, these young native trees
were an experiment to see how transplanting them after digging them up with
an AirSpade pneumatic excavator compares with the usual practice of
transplanting them out of air-pruning pots.
vi. Planting a potted tree is much simpler, but trees might thrive better from bare-
root transplanting. Growing trees in the ground is easier than it is in pots;
transporting bare-root trees is easier, but digging them out takes a lot more time
than simply moving pots. We'll see.The transplanted trees were flagged, but not
caged with the usual deer exclosures, as they ought to be old enough to survive
deer browse.
vii. Perhaps they could serve as a modified AVID protocol monitoring area,though
this site would not support the minimum of six plots recommended in Sullivan,
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Smallidge and Curtis' AVID method manual (2020, CU Dept of Natural
Resources), nor are the transplanted trees seedlings now.
8. Other Business
a. AVID project: in the works; we will wait until the trees leaf out.
9. Review of 2024 work goals (Frank)
a. Frank received updates from Ingrid and James.
10. Adjourn (6:45pm)
Minutes respectfully submitted by Mike Roberts, with help from Ingrid and James.
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